"Why do you have legs as Phantom?"

"Why doesn't the Chocoplasm Ghost have legs?"

Leo blinks and rolls his eyes, "First off, Chocoplasm Ghost isn't my name any more than Inviso-Bil was yours. Second off," he kicks at Danny underneath the library table, "I asked first."

"OW, I'm less dead than you, bitch?"

"That's not measurable. Besides, Inviso-Bil has more aggressive powers than Chocoplasm. Which means you're more ghostly and arguably more dead." Leo rubs at his temples while staring at the biography on the table, pretending to read. This assignment isn't helping his headache. The dry and dusty books call for him to just rest his head and his eyes.

"Pfft, aside from the Wail, Chocoplasm is totally on level with Phantom." Danny made a half-hearted annotation in the margins that looked suspiciously like 'Faulkner needs to shut up.'

Leo stops. "Okay, stop Danny. Don't try to play all sympathetic like your sister does. I can only handle that from one Fenton and only on occasion. It's not funny anymore." He stares at Danny, not threatening, just a heavy look without amusement. Just something a little less human and alive.

"Ramirez, you're a hybrid. You've gotta be tough. What do I have that you don't?" Danny

Leo sits back, ticking off the list on his fingers. "Ghostly wail, Ice powers, Duplication, and the ghost sense mist thing to start with, Fenton. Plus, I don't actually fight ghosts so everything else isn't as developed as yours outside of emotional distress."

"Your powers get weird with your emotions?"

Leo deadpans, "I pinned you and almost blasted your head off the other day because you were harassing Technus and endangering Wes. Pretty sure that all ghosts' powers get weird with emotion. Are you saying that your powers wouldn't amp up if I was raggin' on Tucker and/or Sam?"

"I thought that was what you could normally do."

"Hell no, just shut up and read," Leo snaps his book closed and grabs the next in the stack. Mr. Lancer glances at them for the first time in the period because unlike the Excuses Trio, he actually knows where to sit to be invisible. He settles in for the long game of ignoring Danny while pretending to actually get work done. He knows that focus isn't on his side this time. Within moments, there's a jabbing of the short story packet at his book.

"Can you check that I've got this right?"

"You're not stupid, Fenton; check it against the Sparknotes."

"Ramirez," Danny hisses.

Sighing through his nose, Leo pulled the papers onto his side of the table without putting down the book. What can you do then? There's a lightning flash of terror for a heartbeat before he remembers that these are personal notes that Lancer's not collecting. Leo uncaps a pen with his teeth and closes the book with his fingers marking his place. Make people stay away or come and help.

Danny rolls his eyes when he reads the scrawl.

"Like some of your powers aren't lame, snow queen."

Danny shrugged, "Okay, but like the Box Ghost…."

"GENTLEMEN," both teenagers jump at the sudden proximity of Lancer, "I appreciate your concern with Amity's current events, but your pair is specifically addressing Mr. Faulkner's struggles as an author." Danny fumbles for words. Deer in the headlights.

"Er well, he grew up in the South and had romance struggles. But he listened to other people telling stories. And he wrote more experimentally during the same time as Hemmingway," Danny slows into a rambling explanation that flows with his thoughts. "Who kinda took writing into the write with less words way, which had to be annoying because Faulkner's just trying to do his thing and have people listen to the stories he's telling. But like, he also got a lot of awards for his writing and people still like it. And he writes the South pretty well for how he saw it, I think."

Lancer nods and turns to Leo. "And your thoughts on Faulkner, Mr. Ramirez?"

"He's a creep who wrote cringy, triggering things and some people rightfully objected. And I don't like him." The words are dry and sharp.

Lancer's eyebrows inch closer to the smooth crest of his head. "I can't tell you to like or not like any given literature, Mr. Ramirez. But for your other positions, do you have evidence?"

Leo reached over to Danny's packet and flipped it back to the front page. "A Rose for Emily is about necrophilia, Mr. Lancer. She falls in love with a dude, kills him, and sleeps by his corpse every night. That's creepy." There's a snorting/choking noise, and in the corner of his vision, Danny can see Wes Weston's eyes bugging out. "And on top of that, the town HAD to know that something was up but they just made her house not stink. And the town romanticized her."

Smiling, Mr. Lancer flips Leo's story packet to another of Faulkner's novellas. "Try this. I think, Mr. Ramirez, that you'll find that one story is hardly the whole of the person's capabilities. Nor is it what should allow you to judge the author so harshly."

The quiet of the library sits more hollowly. Danny doesn't ask about Leo's ghost again.

Leo keeps asking random things about Phantom.

I just really like Leo.

He's my answer to a couple questions that eventually will be written about but not today.